


possible firefights and frostbite

by anomalousGreenhorn



Category: The School for Good and Evil - Soman Chainani
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Frostbite, M/M, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, just me having fun mostly, kind of a crack fic, mayhaps??, quite a lot of cussing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-20 21:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16563713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalousGreenhorn/pseuds/anomalousGreenhorn
Summary: Hort sighs, leaning his head way back out of exasperation, semi-hoping it will pop right off his neck if he leans back far enough. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the dead of fucking winter, as you said, and no one wants to be unexpectedly evacuated into the snow wearing nothing but a Nirvana tank and, uh, are those pajama pants? Wait, are thosemypajama pants?”——rather: In which Ravan, for the first time ever, is not a ginormous bitch.





	possible firefights and frostbite

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fill, though mostly just me goofing around. maybe ooc? this is not how college works.

“What did that idiot think they were doing? Do they think they’re fucking funny? That they’re some sort of jokester? A prankster? Do I _look_ humored? It is the dead of fucking winter, and some dingus thinks they can pull the fire alarm and get away unnoticed and without blame? I will make that fucker pay if I catch them — sorry, _when_ I catch them. Mark my words, Hort. Mark these fucking words down on the very paper that is to be written on. Crimes like this do not go unpunished.”

Hort really doesn’t want to be here right now. He doesn’t want to stand in the snow in nothing but a blue North Face sweater and some Nike shorts, and he doesn’t want to freeze his ass off, and he doesn’t want to listen to the moans and groans of the student body just as much as the next guy, but at least he isn’t plotting someone’s funeral over it. You know, unlike _someone_. (Hint: it’s his grumpy shitwad of a roommate.)

“I told you to wear a jacket,” Hort mumbles, kicking at some snow. Ow. Ow. Okay. Maybe that’s not the best idea when his feet are practically naked, seeing as his hole-filled socks don’t do jack to shelter his already bruised and claussed toes from the harsh winter cold.

Ravan gains otherworldly abilities when he’s in Determined Mode, because he manages to get through yet another paragraph of bitching without stuttering once, even though his face is flushed red and he’s shivering and twitching like a mad man. _Shivering_ hardly even scratches the surface, though — the guy is damn near quaking in his boots. _At least he_ has _shoes_ , Hort thinks bitterly.

“Why, pray tell, would I wear a jacket inside the comfort of a very much heated dorm room without any intent of leaving the building any time this _season_ ? Please, dear ‘roomie’, riddle me _that_.”

Hort sighs, leaning his head way back out of exasperation, semi-hoping it will pop right off his neck if he leans back far enough. “Hm, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s the _dead of fucking winter_ , as you said, and no one wants to be unexpectedly evacuated into the snow wearing nothing but a Nirvana tank and, uh, are those pajama pants? Wait, are those _my_ pajama pants?”

Ravan wraps his arms further around himself (if that’s even still in the realm of possibility) and purses his lips, as though he’s been insulted. He grunts out: “You are in no situation to judge my choice of bottoms, Mr. I-wear-booty-shorts-in-the-middle-of-fucking-winter.”

Oh, he did _not_ go there. This is hardly the time to resurface memories of the booty shorts and almost-booty shorts incident(s) of ninth grade. Those events were borderline traumatic for Hort. Sometimes he still has nightmares over it.

Gritting his teeth, Hort snaps right back at him: “First off, they’re _athletic_ shorts. Not that you’d know that, of course, since you haven't worn a real pair of shorts in the last five years.”

Ravan clicks his tongue, and that pisses Hort off even more. “I don’t know, those are looking a little short to me.”

“That’s because they’re shorts, you off brand demon-looking piece of shit! _Short_ is in the name!”

Ravan makes a show of exhaling, then inhaling, then exhaling again.

“What.” Pause to inhale. “Did you just call me?”

It’s going to be a long morning.

* * *

 The first thing Hort says upon re-entering their dorm is a boisterous, “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Ravan asks idly as he shoves through their shared closet between the two beds. It’s actually quite a small room, considering everything, and maybe if Hort wasn’t in actual mortal peril right now, he’d be grateful that his roommate is such a neat freak.

“My feet,” Hort drawls, “I can’t feel them.”

This snatches Ravan’s attention. He stops browsing through clothing, at least.

“What?” he repeats, with significantly more confusion and significantly less annoyance than previously.

“My feet. They feel all fuzzy, like when your foot falls asleep, expect that’s not possible.” Hort shuffles up to his bed and pulls his feet up to his chest. He slips his socks off and pokes at his big toe. It’s almost like touching raw meat; chunky, smooth, but without the juices. Weird.

Ravan spins around and, like he’s an actor on television, with one hand raised and his eyes glued to the floor, says, “Frostbite. You have frostbite.”

And Hort, following up the whole T.V. blizz, replies very, very slowly, “... What’s frostbite, again?”

Ravan’s hand flinches up, then drops to his side. With a shake of his head, he says, “You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You _are_ kidding me.”

“I am not.”

“You’re joking.”

“For God’s sake, just tell me how to fix it!”

Ravan mulls this over for a moment. Apparently Hort’s increase in vehemence has persuaded him. “Okay, so, you need to keep your feet warm, obviously. We’re gonna need more blankets; more than what you’ve got, at least. And maybe we can jack the heat up some? I’ll talk to Dot and see what I can do.”

As he says this, Ravan begins stripping his bed of its sheets and tosses them toward Hort, who has very little time to react. By the time he’s finished monologuing, Ravan has made his way to the door of the dorm whilst Hort has been successfully buried under hoards of blankets.

Unenthusiastic as ever, Ravan cues his departure — “I take my leave, or whatever that line is,” — then he’s out the door, already history.

And for the first time ever, Hort isn’t having negative thoughts about his roommate. (So long as Ravan doesn’t consider ‘something of a coddling mother’ an insult, that is.)

* * *

Hort tries to open his eyes some time later, but it seems they will not open due to being glued shut by eye-sand (that’s definitely _not_ what it’s called) and ew, ew, that is really disgusting. After scratching the crusties away, Hort takes a gander at the digital clock on his bedside table, which reads 1:22 A.M.

He blinks. Still 1:22 A.M.

Actually, no, now it’s 1:23 A.M.

He rolls onto his side, weighed down by the seemingly endless amounts of sheets Ravan had dug up for him earlier, and peeks over at the blanket-hoarder himself, who is very much not asleep, it seems. Ravan is sitting on his sheetless bed, back hunched uncharastically so, squinting into the bright light given off from his laptop as he types furiously.

Hort sits up.

“Ravan?” he calls out, though ‘call’ hardly cuts it, because his voice is barely above a whisper. Ravan still hears him, however.

“What are you doing up?” he snaps without peeling his eyes away from the computer's screen.

“What are _you_ doing up?” Normally, Hort wouldn’t give a damn about Ravan’s strange midnight activities, but seeing as he _did_ help treat Hort’s frostbite (which can apparently be fatal? What?), he might as well try to be a bit nice, if only this once. Also, maybe Hort feels a _little_ guilty over stealing all his blankets.

“Just…” Ravan begins, but interrupts himself by grunting and violently smashing the backspace button on the keyboard multiple times. He then continues: “Finishing this thing for Psychology. It doesn’t matter—” He pauses. “—to you, anyway.”

But, surprise, surprise, Hort isn't satisfied with this. “You can finish it in the morning. If you don’t even try to get some sleep, you won’t be able to function during class, so it won’t even matter if you’ve finished your stupid Prezi. Or is it an essay? I doubt you’d procrastinate on that, so maybe an essay _inside_ a Prezi?”

Ravan’s fingers slow, Hort notes, but he still refuses to look in his general direction. “Go back to sleep, Hort.”

“Not until you do.” At this point, Hort’s forgotten his original motive, but there’s no turning back now. He adds, “You know I’m right. You used to lecture me about this shit.”

Ravan stops typing completely and stares at the screen for a moment. Without warning, he slams the laptop shut and releases a huge groan as his posture finally relaxes. “Fine, fine, goddamnit. I hate it when you’re right.”

Then he shuts his eyes  and flips onto his side and that’s that.

“Uh, Ravan? You’re kind of missing some blankets. And pillows, for that matter, though I don’t know where those went.”

“No, really? I hadn’t noticed,” is Ravan’s quick and antsy response. Hort considers going back to bed, which is really what he ought to be doing at this ungodly hour, but his very, _very_ verbal conscience gets the best of him.

He sighs. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, get in the fucking bed, Ravan. You’re going to freeze if you don’t.”

Ravan doesn’t react for a second. What almost appears to be a laugh sounds. “You’re hilarious. And also sleep deprived.”

That’s probably true, but this seems like the only sensible route of action to Hort right now, so he simply waits. Eventually, Ravan sits up and faces him.

“You’re… being serious?” He furrows his brows. It’s somewhat amazing how much emotion he can put into his facial expressions at this time. He really does not know sleep, does he?

“I’d feel guilty, otherwise,” Hort defends.

“I mean…” For the first time in written history, Ravan is stumped. It’s not a matter of _looking_ stumped or _appearing_ stumped, because he is, quite obviously, stumped. “Okay.”

* * *

 That’s how Hort remembers it, at least. He can’t really think of any other explanation for why he wakes up curled around and clinging onto Ravan.

“This is _gold_ , oh my fucking God. Are my eyes deceiving me? Is this actually happening? Dot, you took a picture, right? Jesus Christ. That actually happened. I can’t believe Ravan’s cuddling up to Hort fucking Scourie. This really is a new year.”

Oh, yeah. There’s also the whole deal with Hester and Dot being in their dorm room right this very minute.

Ravan’s out of the bed in a flash. “How did you get in here? I _know_ the doors were locked last night.”

Hort watches as he tries to retain whatever dignity may not have been cast out into the wind by last night’s decisions, but it’s futile, everyone knows. No amount of arm crossing and leaning against the wall with a vengeful glint in his eye will save Ravan from The Humiliation From Hester (THFH). Hort knows this from first hand experience.

The woman in question snickers. “You gave me ‘n Ani a key, remember? In case of emergencies or whatever. You should’ve warned us you’d be macking on your roommate, though.”

Hort feels like crawling under a rock and starting a new life under it. Or dying. Or crawling under a rock, and then dying. He ducks further down into the sheets and hopes Hester will forget he’s there.

“What do you want other than to taunt me mercilessly?” That’s Ravan, he observes.

“I had questions about our Psychology paper, but you didn’t answer when I knocked on the door, so Hester suggested I just find your paper myself and copy off of it — oh, stop looking at me like that. We’ve _all_ copied off of each other. That includes Hort, too. So then she unlocked the door for me, and, well…” And that’s Dot. She isn’t able to finish her thought without cackling.

“You know what? It doesn’t matter. Get the hell out of my room before I call security.” Ravan once again. He sure is feisty. It’s kind of, dare Hort says, endearing.

There’s quite a lot of shuffling and laughing and vulgar jokes being made before the door is shut and, according to the little _click_ that rings out promptly after, locked. Hort decides it’s safe to sit up now.

“It wasn’t what it looked like,” he says almost instinctively, more to himself than to Ravan.

“Of course it wasn’t.” Ravan shakes his head. “Look, we’re going to be late if you don’t get your ass up. Here, take this—” Projectile clothes are quickly moving in Hort’s direction. “—and pick up all these pillows you definitely knocked off the bed before you go. We slept through breakfast. My classes start in… fuck, fuck, _fuck_ , ten minutes. I need to go— I need to go _right now_ —”

And he’s already darted out the door. A faint string of profanities is all that is left in his place.

A moment of silence.

 _Maybe_ , Hort considers, once Ravan is long gone. _Maybe he isn’t so bad after all._

**Author's Note:**

> [HEY GUESS WHAT I'M ON TUMBLR TOO](https://ofthickettumble.tumblr.com/)


End file.
